Exodus of top Trudeau advisors for Washington trip risky: critics

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is taking too much of a risk by bringing so many of the key decision makers in his inner circle with him on his trip to Washington, says Conservative Foreign Affairs Critic Tony Clement.

“It would be highly unusual to really move a whole layer of government decision makers at the same time to the same location and I question the validity of that,” said Clement, a former cabinet minister.

Clement suggested the government draft a formal policy on how many top people can be out of the country at the same time as the prime minister.

New Democratic Party Leader Tom Mulcair voiced similar unease with Trudeau’s decision.

“You can ask who’s left minding the store and what do you do if something happens?” Mulcair said.

The concerns come as Trudeau left Wednesday for a three-day official visit to Washington, D.C., capped by a prestigious state dinner in his honor, hosted by U.S. President Barack Obama.

Along for the trip are most of the members of Trudeau’s innermost circle – Principal Secretary Gerald Butts, Chief of Staff Katie Telford, Deputy Chief of Staff Jeremy Broadhurst and Michael Wernick, clerk of the Privy Council. The four are arguably among the most important advisors and core decision makers in Trudeau’s administration.

Conservative insiders say privately that the exodus of top decision makers to Washington is in stark contrast with Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s office, which often discouraged chiefs of staff from travelling out of the country with their ministers to ensure that decisions could be made if the minister was in transit and could not be reached.

Clement said the only time the Conservative government came close to such a large number of key decision makers out of the country at the same time was Harper’s trip to Israel but it pales in comparison to Trudeau’s trip.

“There were many ministers who were not there, including myself, we still ran committee meetings, the levers of government were still there (in Ottawa), the clerk of the Privy Council was not there with the prime minister when he was in Israel – so the parts of government that have to continue to act were all in place in Ottawa while he was in Tel Aviv.”

Clement acknowledged the risks of Trudeau’s decision are mitigated because it is a short trip. However, he said there has to be a clear line of authority and continuity that can act in an instant if there is a crisis.

“That’s a principle of Canadian governance — that in the midst of a crisis there has to be a continuity of governing. We saw that with the October 22 attacks here on Parliament. The first order of business was to secure the prime minister, then secure the defence minister and the public safety minister because that provided the continuity of government if we had to mobilize troops or mobilize the RCMP or deal with a much more far reaching crisis than fortunately we had to deal with.”

“It’s a practice and it’s a common sense thing at a time when all government officials are potential targets of attack too or there could be an incident here while they are away.”

Cameron Ahmad, spokesman for Trudeau, downplayed the concerns of opposition critics, saying the trip to Washington is a very important one and Trudeau needs to be surrounded by his top officials.

Ahmad said a number of senior officials are remaining in Ottawa but could not or would not identify which one would be in charge should a crisis hit.

“Staff both in Ottawa and in Washington remain in communication and are available to discuss issues that arise both in Washington and domestically.”

The order of precedence, one of the first things adopted when Trudeau’s cabinet was sworn in, outlines that Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale would step in if Trudeau were unable to make decisions and back up replacements for every member of cabinet.